Safari Sunday

As the days shorten, it’s now a race to get photos and enjoy the last of the good weather; temperatures are set to halve in the next few days and I’m guessing the plants will quickly begin to die soon after.

This weekend I picked up a new hanging basket and pot for the front door steps to see me through winter. I’m still itching to buy more bulbs, but I can’t. There’s no point. And I just hope I haven’t lost any/many over the last year.

We’ve had a new house alarm fitted as ours has been playing up – we thought it was fixed as no one had said anything to us for the past month. Then last weekend my neighbour mentioned to Pete that it still goes off every day. For the past month??!!!! And not a single person said anything??!!! Grrrr. So yes we bought a new one and have put it up today, most of the day was spent setting it up and of course meant my other plans were scrapped. It’s been a lovely day though, especially when in the sun.

The new pot has Cyclamen and viola, and should last months, my others with Salvia hot lips, bidens, Nicotiana, Coreopsis, Nemesia and Verbena are doing well, but I think will be gone by the end of the month.

The purple Aster are finally showing signs of opening… I hope they don’t mind the cool weather that’s coming. Chrysanthemum is also almost open, however my other plant in the back garden looks like it won’t be blooming yet again. Time to get rid me thinks. Also, it was a surprise to spot a Cinnabar caterpillar! I haven’t seen any in weeks, I hope it pupates soon.

Harlow Carr is blooming for me, yay! I’m disappointed with my others; Tess of the D’urbervilles for example would ordinarily have had a few flushes. Flat-topped Aster is now going to seed, it doesn’t hold onto his seed heads well so they will quickly be blown away.

The old Petunia hanging basket has been taken down and replaced with a winter basket. I’ve left it hanging on the gate, where actually it looks rather lovely back-lit by the sun. Once the plants have totally died – they’re very straggly – I’m going to replace them with violas.

Finally, the white Asters in the front garden are flowering a little more profusely, and I love that the white Salvia, although quite late to start blooming is still going so late on. Even where there are no blooms, the plants are still a lovely shade of green and don’t seem to suffer from the same problems as the others i.e. being eaten by caterpillars.

Such dreamily beautiful photos Liz, they really capture that soft Autumn feeling, I particularly love the cosmos and petunias.I can’t believe that about the alarm though, surely someone would put a note through the door?! Madness! Fingers crossed that the tardy asters give you some welly before succumbing to the colder temperatures.

We did have a note through the door – and a neighbour mentioned to me about the alarm a month or so ago when it first started playing up. We changed the batteries, reprogrammed the fobs etc and assumed it was OK because no one then said anything else to us. We can only assume it’s OK unless someone tells us otherwise!
Anyway, it’s sorted now (hopefully).

I’m hoping the forecast for cooler weather is all a lie and it stays relatively mild. I’m in denial. Again.

Temperatures due to halve? I hadn’t heard that… brrr! Those pink cosmos are indeed pretty – and I had to smile at your petunias! It’s always hard to decide when to take them out of the baskets and replace them with something like violas – mine are still full of flower but also an overindulgence of foliage which looks odd, and I have some of Aldi’s violas waiting to jump into their shoes when the decision is finally made! Odd about your alarm, isn’t it?

I saw it on the BBC but I am hopeful they’ll have the forecast wrong as always. it’s almost hard to believe it could switch so quickly as it’s been really quite warm today!

The Petunias are still blooming quite happily and there are plenty of flowers on them, just it’s at that scraggly stage where there’s enough dead heads and old growth to make it less than perfect. This time last year I had a lovely pot of aldi Lobelias which were very colourful, the petunias are pathetic though, but pretty.

I would’ve thought someone would come sooner to tell me there was a problem with the alarm i.e. the next week or maybe two weeks later.. Obviously not. Ye then giving me a sob story how they’re 62 and it goes off when they’re in bed in the morning… Sorry, I can’t help something I don’t know about. Of course I’m mortified and sorted it once I knew!

I noticed the weather widget on my phone was showing night temps of 4 degrees by the weekend – although we will be much further north by then so the weather could be doing completely different things there! I have some lovely laurentia from Aldi too which shows no sign of finishing flowering – the same with my ice cream containers which have been beautiful 🙂

I sort of have a love-hate relationship with Cosmos. By that I mean, I love them but they hate me. Whenever I grow them they’re either tiny pathetic things which produce 2 tiny blooms or they grow into huge Cosmos ‘trees’ and take months to bloom and just as I’m giving up hope they decide to bloom in October. I don’t think I’ve ever had a sown plant bloom earlier than September. This year I bought them though because I didn’t sow anything – expected to move – so perhaps next year I’ll be buying more to bulk up the garden, assuming I still haven’t moved.

Not sure about the Asters… Trying to think back to this time last year. They were definitely already in bloom by now, just not sure if it was particularly cold yet?

Hi Liz, was getting worried as I hadn’t seen any posts for a while but it seems WP reader played up. Sorry. Why is there no point to plant bulbs? I got even more to plant up in pots. I love your pics as always. Honesty seed pods are so pretty and I’m very much enjoying the Cosmos which are in full bloom now. Thankfully it usually gets only colder later in the year so I intend to enjoy every day. Best wishes to you 🙂

WP reader has never been very good for me; it takes blog posts much longer to appear then BlogSpot did/does and I often don’t get notification of posts either.
No point to plant bulbs because I might possibly be moved before they come up. I already have plenty in the ground as I’ve added at least 400 annually for the past 5 years. Although I realise now is not the best time of year to be selling, a lot of houses locally have been selling so hopefully I won’t wait too long.

We’ve been enjoying slightly above average temperatures here recently, so when I say it’ll get cooler I mean it’ll be dropping to average/below average which for some may be a 10C drop. Something to do with a switch in pressure, so instead of southerly winds bringing warm air from the continent, we’ll be getting cold are from the arctic – I don’t think we’ll get any frosts though.